14 MILK SURVEY OF THE CITY OF ROCHESTER 



efficient in his chosen pursuit as the average man in other walks of life. We doubt 

 if there is any group of men in any corresponding industry so well informed as to 

 their craft, so keenly interested in its progress, and so eager for success as the 

 dairy farmers of the State of New York." 



The Committee's investigations included dairy farms producing milk 

 for the City of Rochester, and milk companies distributing milk in the 

 City of Rochester. 



The conclusions of this Committee regarding distribution are ex- 

 pressed as follows: 



"UNNECESSARY COSTS OF DISTRIBUTION" 



"This business is conducted on an extremely competitive basis. * * * A 

 large part of the cost arises from the bitter competition existing in the distribution 

 of the product * * * An army of solicitors and sales agents are main- 

 tained * * * Overhead charges attributable to this work amount to an 

 alarming sum * * * It is customary to refer to the fact that four or six 

 or ten milk wagons and milk drivers visit the same block * but this 



ignores the really greater expense of the silent army of retainers * * * Not 

 only do we find in single blocks these wagons and horses, but on the same block 

 six solicitors ; six route superintendents ; six staffs of clerks and bookkeepers. The 

 distribution of milk is a public service which, to be put upon an economic basis, 

 requires public regulation to the end that all unnecessary services even of a com- 

 petitive kind may be eliminated." 



"DISTRIBUTION OF MILK SHOULD BE A REGULATED PUBLIC 



SERVICE" 



"It is safe to assert that the consumers in the City of New York pay several 

 millions of dollars annually for the privilege of having all the numerous purveyors 

 of this necessity of life engage in attempts to serve him * * * A milk supply 

 is as much a daily necessity and even more so than gas or electricity." 



"It certainly seems as if the dairymen of this State and the distributers with 

 their invested capital, and the consumer, should co-operate to the end that these 

 unnecessary competitive wastes be eliminated and the dairymen's milk brought to 

 the consumer at the lowest possible expense." 



"The investigations of the Committee lead to the conclusions that under the 

 present competitive system it takes almost as many men to bring the dairymen's 

 milk to the consumer as there are dairymen engaged in the production of milk with 

 all their employees. This is the result of the purely competitive basis upon which 

 the business is handled. Three or four milk stations are being maintained with a 

 separate force of employees to collect or receive the dairymen's milk at many points 

 where one well equipped station with a competent force could do all the collecting 

 at one-fifth the present expense. This unnecessary duplication of service follows 

 with all its attendant overhead and capital investment from the country milk station 

 until the bottle of milk is finally deposited at the consumer's door. A large part of 

 this, in the judgment of this Committee, could and should be eliminated. * * * 

 The only solution possible is to limit and leave only those in the field which the 

 service actually requires. This is just as obvious in the case of milk as it is in gas 

 or any other daily necessity supplied in small quantity to the consumer. 



"It is believed by the Committee that a State Department * * * should be 

 created to provide ways and means * * * to consolidate this service, not only 



